A Violation... - Developers

[B]I want to put this out for the record, if this is not the place to put this thread up, please move it cause I don't know where else to write this. [/B][IMG]http://i.imgur.com/s0eGzzy.jpg[/IMG] "Oh great, what a piece of shit thing did I do now?" - I asked myself when I woke up to suddenly see this. People know I don't try to hide back and I'm the guy that goes for it when most don't want to try it in fear of backlash. Well surprise, it's not one of my models today but instead something for more indiscriminate. People know that I also know basic Lua coding, so of course say some models I uploaded like the Verdun WW1 models, people ride on me to make actual Sweps for it. Well I made the hideous mistake to use TFA's base. Thinking it looked basic enough and would work, I decided to go ahead and put my energy to using that. But I wish I could've seen 2 years ago that I was getting my sweps involved with an egotistical golf hustling selfish kid, and if you say I'm being too harsh on calling him these names then you're damn right I am. This man conflicted with me before telling me that I needed to update his base and make it to where players have to also download his base in order to use 'My' addons so he can get the subscribers and get more up votes. I saw the other way and didn't want players to have to download multiple things in order to use one addon, cause we know a lot of people who subscribe don't know and aren't aware of having to download a base with it (Atleast during that time before adding required addons became popular). I simply stated to him if the sweps conflict with the updated base, then players can just simply unsubscribe my addon. They don't have to keep it, they're not forced to use my base and his base at the same time. I merely made them for individual purposes is all. Well it turns out he decided he did not like my decision to not go back to my 2 year old addons to fix just for his personal gain, so what does he do, he goes on a mass DMCA take down on every single Swep I have made from his base. But the ones he went for first happened to be the older ones that had the most subscribers over time and the highest up votes, [B]yeah gotta get a piece of those. [/B] But there was one thing he seem to forget when he went on this mass DMCA spree just to try to show up to me, that he DMCA addons where HE DID GET CREDIT ON. Without a doubt, I give credit where it's due, I don't chickenshit and hide it somewhere. And if I miss a spot to give someone credit, I go back and put them on. I do not hide out. But I guess having a name on the description wasn't enough for him, no he wanted more people to have to download his base so he can get a high download count. Don't believe me, view these pictures. This is my Lee Enfield that a lot of people know about, you can see it received a DMCA Ban instantly. May I remind I never received any warnings what so ever. [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/TL0ESmc.jpg[/IMG] But if you look at the second picture just below it, you would see he had no grounds to DMCA ban it cause he did got credit after all, and I didn't go back to change it or anythiing, this is the description from 2 years ago. [B]HE GOT CREDIT. [/B] [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/2kJomYJ.jpg[/IMG] Want more? Here's my Lewis Gun that I retextured from Dice's Battlefront since I seen it as a nice addition. Originally I thought of only leaving this as a model, but I thought putting it as a Swep will draw more attention. This was the first swep I made using TFA base, also had a good chunk amount of subscribers too. [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/EnmCgmG.jpg[/IMG] Again, he received [B]CREDIT[/B] on this addon as the main coding, I even went as far as saying the only thing I did was re-texturing it, that's it. [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/V9rnD4A.jpg[/IMG] And it doesn't stop there. In the end I do not want these weapons plauging on my workshop and for that matter I took them all down to avoid any lengthing times, but if he wants a war then he's getting one. I'm not going to take this lying down and will fight this case until my Steam Community is no longer ban. Some of my friends told me to just stick it out for the 4 weeks and I would if I wasn't going to the Military in just that same time period from now, so I'd like to spend my time with my friends till' then, but now I gotta' deal with this crap. I want people here to try to tell me where should I start on fighting this matter, I already got a steam ticket out but I might speak to some moderators to get this reversed now that there are no sweps using his base on my Workshop anymore. If I can't win the battle I can atleast get this Community Ban reverse.

"Giving credit" does not exempt you from copyright law. That's not how things work. He might be a dick but I don't think you've got much ground to stand on if you're dealing with derivative work and uploading work that was not created by you and which you do not have explicit written permission to redistribute. Retexturing someone else's work and then reuploading it is [I]not protected[/I]. From what I'm seeing, you are objectively in the wrong here and the DMCAs are valid. So your "war" is pointless unless you can prove that you fall under one of the fair use exceptions to copyright or that you are the original creator of the full materials you are uploading. And I doubt you can.

Just going to have to take it one step at a time, right now all I'm worry about is trying to get unbanned.

That's between you and Steam Support. Good luck.

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/krL9XjY.jpg[/IMG] I'm facing a $2,500 fine right now. It's like a nightmare before christmas. Looks like I'm gonna have to sit this one out, fuck!

[QUOTE=TheDevilsOwn;51620185]I'm facing a $2,500 fine right now. [/QUOTE] Holy shit. So not only did he take down your stuff, he's fining you as well?

As dickish as TFA's action might seem, I have to agree with elixwhitetail on this one. Even if you gave credit and made slight changes here and there, you're still within the limits of the DMCA's reach, so your workshop items were unfortunately removed under valid terms. While I hope you can at least get the ban removed, I'm afraid uploading that content as a SWEP on his base won't be an option at this point. Which honestly sucks, because I was looking forward to trying out the Lee Enfield SWEP. Edit: More shit was added while I was making my post, didn't know that you're also being fined. That's pretty fucking low, in all honesty. I can understand getting a DMCA to have it taken down, but also fining you $2500 as well? That's just fucking dirty.

Proof of being fined?

TFA base isn't an option anymore, even if I get this ban removed I can safely say my Workshop days are over. For right now I'm just trying to see if this fine is actual, I'm getting ready to contact my local court right now. The DMCA allows registered copyright owners to file a lawsuit in a federal district court. The federal court has the power to grant injunctions against the defendant to prevent future infringements. The defendant may have to pay actual damages in 2011 up to $2,500 per violation, or statutory damages up to $25,000. The plaintiff may also recover any profits the defendant made from the infringement. Repeat offenders may face triple damages if they violate the DMCA within three years of a judgment.

[QUOTE=TheDevilsOwn;51620185][...] Looks like I'm gonna have to sit this one out, fuck![/QUOTE] Well, obviously. You broke the law after all (and Steam even tells you the requirements in huge type before you upload anything iirc..). A four-week community ban is pretty lenient for this though. The penalties for example by YouTube are much harsher, and usually risk a permanent ban if there are enough infractions. It would of course have been nice of the original author to ask you to take it down first through another channel, but there's really no requirement in that regard whatsoever.

Your not getting fined. A DMCA request is not a notice saying "I am going to sue you." It is a takedown notice. I highly doubt some random modder on steam has enough money to sue you. Have you even attempted contact with the person? Did you even ask for permission to use their models? Your in the fault here if either of those were not attempted, and to defame him for that is bad. Hes under no obligation to contact you first. You used his stuff, he didn't want you to.

So as a big relief my Municpial Court Clerk stated that I don't have any leading fines right now, when I gave him the slip he stated it was only what could be if my counter complaint was to fail. So right now I can just focus on trying to get unbanned without worrying about having to quit college just to pay the fine. [editline]4th January 2017[/editline] And yes I contacted him, but he was just as rude to me as I was to him. Acted like a complete dick before blocking all contact with me afterwards, that happened a month ago.

[QUOTE=Te Great Skeeve;51620271]Your not getting fined. A DMCA request is not a notice saying "I am going to sue you." It is a takedown notice. I highly doubt some random modder on steam has enough money to sue you. Have you even attempted contact with the person? Did you even ask for permission to use their models? Your in the fault here if either of those were not attempted, and to defame him for that is bad. Hes under no obligation to contact you first. You used his stuff, he didn't want you to.[/QUOTE] It's not the models that are the issue (in fact, those models are perfectly fine to use iirc). It's the fact that they're using TFA's SWEP code, which is why the DMCA was placed.

[QUOTE=TheDevilsOwn;51620287]So as a big relief my Municpial Court Clerk stated that I don't have any leading fines right now, when I gave him the slip he stated it was only what could be if my counter complaint was to fail. So right now I can just focus on trying to get unbanned without worrying about having to quit college just to pay the fine. [editline]4th January 2017[/editline] And yes I contacted him, but he was just as rude to me as I was to him. Acted like a complete dick before blocking all contact with me afterwards.[/QUOTE] No? What? What are you talking about? How would they even find your contact information from a steam profile? Were you making money off it?

[QUOTE=TheDevilsOwn;51620287]So as a big relief my Municpial Court Clerk stated that I don't have any leading fines right now, when I gave him the slip he stated it was only what could be if my counter complaint was to fail. So right now I can just focus on trying to get unbanned without worrying about having to quit college just to pay the fine.[/QUOTE] Actually... you really shouldn't do anything. The only way to get unbanned early without convincing TFA would be to file a counter-notice, and that's precisely what initiates legal proceedings and would constitute perjury (legal terms?) in your case. You could really politely ask TFA to rescind the DMCA, but I don't even know if Steam has a good system in place for them to do that.

[QUOTE=Te Great Skeeve;51620300]No? What? What are you talking about? How would they even find your contact information from a steam profile? Were you making money off it?[/QUOTE] No I asked them if I actually had any fines cause I assume it would go to them if something like that comes across and they told me they didn't get anything. And talking with TFA is basically done, we had flak, maybe Valve will remove the ban now that all of his sweps are no longer on my Workshop. I also want to put out that I don't make any money off my addons.

[QUOTE=Te Great Skeeve;51620300]No? What? What are you talking about? How would they even find your contact information from a steam profile? Were you making money off it?[/QUOTE] DMCA notices contain the filers contact information (name, residence, or if it's a company the registered address). I'm pretty sure this should have been forwarded to TheDevilsOwn, but I'm not certain Steam's required to do that. The counter-notice would have to contain TheDevilsOwn's matching information and would be forwarded to TFA so they could sue if necessary. The DMCA process is mainly in place to avoid costly (court) proceedings in simple cases by adding an additional very easy and automatable step before you need to involve lawyers. It also seems to protect the infringer, but don't quote me on that. (These are legal requirements afaik, so there's nothing Steam can do about it.)

[QUOTE=TheDevilsOwn;51620287] And yes I contacted him, but he was just as rude to me as I was to him. Acted like a complete dick before blocking all contact with me afterwards, that happened a month ago.[/QUOTE] -wrong- [editline]a[/editline] Reread the thread, seems like interpersonal drama. I'll let you two sort this out, seeing as they are reading the thread right now.

[QUOTE=Te Great Skeeve;51620351]-wrong- [editline]a[/editline] Reread the thread, seems like interpersonal drama. I'll let you two sort this out, seeing as he is reading the thread right now.[/QUOTE] I don't understand what you're trying to tell me either, I'm simply trying to get unbanned.

[QUOTE=Te Great Skeeve;51620351]You contacted him, a month ago, didn't get permission, and posted it anyways? Am I reading that correctly?[/QUOTE] You are reading that incorrectly. From what I understand, the process goes as such: - He already had permission and used TFA's base in the SWEPs prior to the recent DMCA. - TFA decided to say that he didn't want the base directly included in the addon any longer, instead wanting to have people be forced to subcribe to the SWEP base as a separate addon under TFA's ownership in order for it to work. - TheDevilsOwn didn't agree with this and left the base as-is in his addons. - TFA didn't agree with this action, and submit DMCAs against the content. Case and point, TFA didn't like the fact that he wasn't going to be able to leech some subscribers from TheDevilsOwn workshop items, so a DMCA was put out. Edit: God damn, I really need to start typing faster. :v:

First and foremost, let me make something exceptionally clear: it was never my intention to get OP fined, and I don't have any of his IRL information. With that out of the way, I'd love to explain the whole situation. The biggest thing I do on GMod is a SWEP base, known as TFA Base. Across almost two years, I've uploaded 144 updates, available here. The base has to stay separate so that code files don't conflict between various submissions; otherwise, thing's break. On December 18, I uploaded a major update: version 4.0, which rewrote several thousand lines of code. For most users, everything worked fine. However, for a select few, everything broke from shooting to ironsights. After helping several users and isolating the problem, I came to the same conclusion each time: OP was redistributing my code and causing conflicts. I was aware about this before, but now it was actually preventing people from playing their games. I naturally attempted to reach out first. A week before sending the requests, I left comments on multiple submissions: [img]https://feen.us/jp22hgiblhsqf0slhd4f.png[/img] Even after pleas from myself and friends, OP was less than receptive: [t]https://feen.us/4fw7qphbzzdzqhb2oijt.png[/t] [t]https://feen.us/cfxkxo3by8sovdpqgzfb.png[/t] He even explicitly states, "I don't go back to my old addons." Honestly, I'm not sure what else I should've done. My work was being literally copypasted without my permission, and not only that, but it was affecting multiple thousands of my users. OP refused plain and simple to take down his addons. I DMCAed two to start, but OP still refused to take down the others; only then did I proceed to the rest.

Because I don't have any desire to go straight back to my addons just to remove the base that's inside. I never said I made the base in the first place, your base is public domain to begin with. I only got rude when you let your friend get involved with it. Just because I don't go back to my old addons does not mean I'm not just gonna care if they get removed, I got an extended ban for this shit!

[QUOTE=TheDevilsOwn;51620355]I don't understand what you're trying to tell me either, I'm simply trying to get unbanned.[/QUOTE] You can try to file a support ticket, as long as you don't imply what you did was legal (which may be pretty risky here). That's very optimistic and will likely just waste some Steam support time. My advice would be to consider this a slap on the wrist. Sure, it's inconvenient, but you didn't get sued or anything like that, so it's not like this is a stain on any important record of yours. It's also better you learn copyright law now than at some later point where the work in question is commercial and the copyright owner can sue you for damages immediately. Besides, judging by TFA's post you've been a massive idiot about this and the whole situation was entirely avoidable on your part.

[QUOTE=TheDevilsOwn;51620387]your base is public domain to begin with.[/QUOTE] it isn't and never was learn about how software licences work being public != being in the public domain lmfao

Yeaaaaaaaaah those logs are pretty damning. He tried to be reasonable. You did not. like geeez you were hostile

[QUOTE=TheDevilsOwn;51620387]your base is public domain to begin with. I only got rude when you let your friend get involved with it. Just because I don't go back to my old addons does not mean I'm not just gonna care if they get removed, I got an extended ban for this shit![/QUOTE] Let me show you something: [url]http://wiki.garrysmod.com/page/Steam_Workshop_Rules[/url] [img]https://feen.us/x6r5n3ibu1.png[/img]

[QUOTE=Tamschi;51620396]You can try to file a support ticket, as long as you don't imply what you did was legal (which may be pretty risky here). That's very optimistic and will likely just waste some Steam support time. My advice would be to consider this a slap on the wrist. Sure, it's inconvenient, but you didn't get sued or anything like that, so it's not like this is a stain on any important record of yours. It's also better you learn copyright law now than at some later point where the work in question is commercial and the copyright owner can sue you for damages immediately. Besides, judging by TFA's post you've been a massive idiot about this and the whole situation was entirely avoidable on your part.[/QUOTE] The way I saw it, it was either ignore it or delete my addon, and I wasn't going to delete it. [editline]4th January 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=TFA;51620402]Let me show you something: [url]http://wiki.garrysmod.com/page/Steam_Workshop_Rules[/url] [img]https://feen.us/x6r5n3ibu1.png[/img][/QUOTE] Alright then I take back what I said, I fucked up on my part for not understand this shit.

[QUOTE=TheDevilsOwn;51620410]The way I saw it, it was either ignore it or delete my addon, and I wasn't going to delete it. [editline]4th January 2017[/editline] Alright then I take back what I said, I fucked up on my part for not understand this shit.[/QUOTE] I'm more angry you tried to bullshit us into thinking he was being rude and not understanding, when in reality you were completely in the wrong and as rude as possible. This whole thread stinks of attempted defamation. Really awful.

[QUOTE=TheDevilsOwn;51620410][...] Alright then I take back what I said, I fucked up on my part for not understand this shit.[/QUOTE] I saw a really great copyright crash course somewhere a while back that covers a lot of these things. I'll try to find it, but the gist really just is 'don't republish (any derivate works of) it unless you have explicit written permission to do precisely that'.

[QUOTE=Te Great Skeeve;51620422]I'm more angry you tried to bullshit us into thinking he was being rude and not understanding, when in reality you were completely in the wrong and as rude as possible. Really awful.[/QUOTE] Oh fuck you man, if you think I'm the rude one you should see the damn steam messages. If I see that I fucked up now then I'm going to admit I fucked up I ain't gonna hide it. I see the things he sent, I'll take it with a grain of salt but I'll stand out and apologies. But we're all real emotional here right now, waking up to see I get a ban ain't something that I sure as shit enjoy, but if I see that I actually did something wrong then I apologies for being arrogant. [highlight](User was banned for this post ("Flaming - Have another ban." - Bradyns))[/highlight]